Type: Romantic
Book | Show: Leigh Bardugo’s Six of Crows, Crooked Kingdom, and Netflix’s Shadow and Bone
Featured Characters: Nina Zenik and Matthias Helvar
Sometimes, the best fictional relationships birth the angstiest and most rewarding fan-made content. Such is the case with Shadow and Bone ships, so naturally, I’ve also compiled a list of favorites for Fangirlish.com. There, I also said, “The perfectly quintessential enemies-to-lovers, forbidden romance—a story about a witch and a witch hunter. Nina Zenik and Matthias Helvar’s relationship is everything that’s beautiful and addicting when it comes to fantasy pairings. Affectionately called Helnik by the fans, Leigh Bardugo’s tragic love story is about endurance, unyielding love, and the unexpected comfort that finds two people when they’re running from everything they know.”
So much of who both characters are and the people they choose to become are directly tied to the love they’ve shown each other. As two people on the run for very different reasons, Nina and Matthias find a safe place with each other. They find someone who’d go out of their way to save the other. The show doesn’t give us nearly enough of them as a couple, but Callahan Skogman and Danielle Galligan pack so much into every scene they share that it feels worthy and breathtaking regardless. What we get feels like it’s a significant chunk because the emotions the characters play with result in some of the most rewarding beats in romantic relationships.
Nina Zenik and Matthias Helvar’s Forbidden Romance Is Everything That’s Best With the Trope
While the two of them should’ve never fallen in love, the world is better because they did. He’s a better person; she’s a stronger Grisha. He learns to love more freely; she learns to accept without hesitations. In every way where it matters, they’re good for each other—cosmically right, destined to meet and fall in love no matter what.
When forbidden romance is done right, it isn’t toxic. It’s opposing forces and beliefs stacked against two people who realize that they’re kindred spirits instead, slowly realizing that the person standing before them is everything they’ve ever wanted in another person. Plus, sprinkle in deep-seated hatred turning into adoration, and we get something wildly entertaining on top of all the initial angst.
For Nina Zenik and Matthias Helvar, it all starts when they’re shipwrecked and forced to spend time together, and it ends with the realization that they’ve given each other a home. It’s setting aside everything they thought they knew and starting over together. It starts with a real, formal introduction.
She’s the reason why the mighty Fjerdan learns how to laugh again.
So much of the reason why Season 1, Episode 6, “The Heart Is an Arrow,” is one of the best episodes in Shadow and Bone is because it kickstarts Nina and Matthias’ relationship in a believable manner. We get the slow progression of their respect coming to the surface as he realizes that despite his beliefs and hatred for Grisha, he’s entranced by her. She’s caring and warm, and she’s choosing to look out for him. She’s the one who’s choosing to be selfless in their confinement, which, in turn, allows him to simply breathe for a moment without looking for the next big thing to hunt down.
In this episode, the quiet moments we get between Nina Zenik and Matthias Helvar give us the right amount of tenderness to decipher exactly how and why they will fall in love. It’s about the vulnerability they both show each other when their lives are on the line that reveals just how safe they are at this moment. It’s how he passes warmth to her, which showcases him removing a bit of armor to protect her instead. They’re individually learning how to step out of their heads and embrace something more beautiful than what they’ve been taught.
In the moment’s scene breakdown, I noted how important formal introductions are, but it’s also about the actions. “In passing her the warmth from his back, Matthias passed on the promise that they were in this together. We know where it leads, but it doesn’t change the fact that this is a moment that’s huge for them. It’s a moment of true humanity that gorgeously reveals what can happen when people open their hearts to the possibility of seeing others beyond what’s presented on the surface.
This isn’t merely a moment of chivalry because Matthias understands fully that Nina isn’t going to gawk at that. She isn’t going to see it as something honorable—she physically needs the warmth because her clothes are soaking wet, but in the same way that he realizes he needed her in the cave, there is the understanding that they are now in this together.
She’ll use her Heartrender gifts to save him, and he’ll use whatever he has to help her. If this show wasn’t based on source material and we didn’t know that they’d end up together, it’s scenes like this that show us that they will. It’s scenes like this that prove that between Nina and Matthias, it’s about equal efforts to give and take.”
This is as far as we get with the two of them until the sweet moments that lead to the eventual “betrayal” that lands Matthias in Hellgate. We know that they sleep together at one point because of flashbacks and memories, but we also get a clear picture that they’re both still dreaming of each other. (I just made myself cry with that specific word choice—you all know the one. I’m sorry. I really am.)
In Season 2, it’s in Nina’s determination to do everything in her power to save him that viewers get a real sense of how deep their love runs—how they’ve left a mark on each other during a short period of time. With this, most of what we have to go off is the context we get in the duology. Nina inspires Matthias to change his Druskelle ways, while he helps her overcome the terrorizing effects of jurda parem. He helps her understand how profoundly precious she is, not just to him but to every person whose path she crosses. And it’s in every little moment in the books where we see how they continually give and take from each other in equal measure. We get different versions of their banter, the tender endearments (little red bird), plus the soft and heart-pounding moments that authenticate how they work better together than apart.
“They were twin souls, soldiers destined to fight for different sides, to find each other and lose each other too quickly. She would not keep him here. Not like this.
“In the next life then,” she whispered. “Go.” She watched his eyes close once more. “Farvell,” she said in Fjerdan. “May Djel watch over you until I can once more.”
Crooked Kingdom, Leigh Bardugo
Their relationship doesn’t last long, but it endures. Nina keeps all her promises to Matthias by bringing him home, and then she carries his heart everywhere she goes. She keeps the hope he had and the love he showed her to the very end. She believes in humanity a little more because Matthias showed her that people could change and grow into better versions of themselves. She falls in love once more with Hanne Brume, and that’s exactly what someone like Matthias would’ve wanted for her—a second chance, an opportunity to love and be loved again. He would want her to have genuine, unyielding happiness and someone to hold her hand through everything. Nina’s heart is big enough for two significant loves in her life, making her relationships more sincere and memorable.
They weren’t supposed to fall in love, but they’re both too stubborn not to listen to their hearts. It’s why they’re meant for each other and why they get some of the most romantic scenes. The caretaking, the vulnerability, and the life-changing adoration that burst through their armor prove that Nina and Matthias are indeed twin souls. They’re the best thing that’s ever happened to one another, better than waffles and anything else in the world.
First Featured Image Credit: ©Netflix